Socrates rhetorically speaks to Homer. He asks: What are the
benefits of your art? Does your poetry help people to live better
lives? He then lists, in an ascending order of importance, the
functions Homer never performed but that, in his poetic way,
he claimed to be able to perform in his imitative writing (that
is, in his pretense to be people other than himself): a politician,
general, businessman, teacher, and philosopher. Socrates
denounces Homer's pretense and says that "all of the poetic
tribe, beginning with Homer, are imitators of images of
excellence." He claims that if artists were able to portray
"reality," they would abandon their games-their form of play
that must not be taken seriously-and become involved in such
activities as statesmanship and education, areas of the state
where character is developed and where intellect rules.

NOTE: As you see here and as you've seen before, for Plato
human excellence is performing the highest function of human
capabilities well. Excellence is acting in accordance with
reason. Artists to him are playful creatures who serve no
significant function but who, nevertheless, are taken quite
seriously by the "ignorant multitude." Their impact on people's
emotions and beliefs make them extremely dangerous to the
well-being of the state and soul.

Plato's criticism of the arts raises many significant questions
about the purpose and place of art in society. For example:
What is "art"? What are the values of aesthetic experience?
Are artists frauds who pretend to have wisdom? Can literature
and the visual arts influence youth to pursue the life of reason?
Should literature and the fine arts be excluded from
educational programs? Does, as Plato suggests in the next
section, life imitate art?

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Plato seems unduly harsh on poetry and poets. His criticism,
although interesting and thought-provoking, seems to neglect a
look at one of the purposes of art of which even he would
approve-to inspire a higher vision of life. Moreover, the
criticism he leveled at Homer in the last argument-that Homer
was neither a statesman nor a teacher of mathematics-equally
applies to Socrates.

In this second strand of the criticism Plato's vendetta against
the poets, Homer in particular, has Plato attempting to prove
that no place for poets exists in the perfectly just state. Poets
must either leave the state or stop being poets or change the
subjects on which they write. Why? Because their works, as
they stand, corrupt the souls of the populace.

Socrates begins the second attack by demonstrating that poetry,
because it is imitation and illusion, appeals to the part of the
soul that is "remote from intelligence," and so fosters inferior
thoughts and emotions. Socrates uses an example of a man
grieving over the loss of his son. When he is alone the grieving
man vents his feelings in loud, woeful utterances. But in the
public view he resists his impulses toward uncontrolled despair
and maintains the demeanor of a reasonable man. Poets,
Socrates says, choose to portray the private moments of life,
for instance, the stricken man's wailing and writhing. One
reason for this is that the "fretful part" of the soul is the easiest
to imitate and is most readily understood by the "nondescript
mob in the theater." On the other hand, the rational man,
leading an orderly and just life, is hard to portray in art and
does not seem to interest an audience. Thus, through art, people
are moved by displays of emotion that they would be ashamed
to reveal publicly.

Socrates implies that life imitates art: "For after feeding fat the
emotion of pity there [in the theater], it is not easy to restrain it
in our own suffering." Nor is pity the only emotion that we are
prone to imitate. We see buffoons and play the clown
ourselves, with the emotions of anger and lust. He proclaims
that poetic imitation

waters and fosters these feelings when what we ought to do is
to dry them up, and it establishes them as our rulers when they
ought to be ruled, to the end that we may be better and happier
men instead of worse and more miserable. (606d)

Therefore, although Homer is the greatest of poets, even his
poems cannot be admitted to the city. The only acceptable
poems are hymns to the gods and the praises of good men. All
other poetry is the enemy of philosophy because it strengthens
the emotions that war with reason. Tyrants praise appetite.
Poets praise emotion. Philosophers praise reason, so only they
can be permitted to educate youth and to influence the masses.

Although here Socrates banishes poetry from the city, he offers
it a return when it can show itself to be a friend of philosophy,
that is, when it realizes that its function is to subordinate
emotion to reason and not, as it now does, to overwhelm reason
with emotion.